A TEENAGE drug dealer has been spared jail despite being found with thousands of pounds worth of heroin and cocaine during two separate police raids.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was caught packaging drugs for sale when warrants were executed at properties in the town centre and Latchford in April and September last year.

But on Wednesday, May 2, the youth was spared jail.

Chester Crown Court heard that the defendant was present at a flat in Pyramid Court on Winmarleigh Street when police officers from the Cheshire and Merseyside forces executed a warrant at around 4am on Thursday, April 13 2017.

A total of £1,750 of heroin and crack cocaine as well as £553.31 in cash was found in a zip-up bag, a green container and a North Face jacket on the floor of a wardrobe.

READ: Two people rescued from their cars after crash near Birchwood

YOURS FOR £700,000: Popular town centre pub goes on sale

HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you think pensioners should be taxed to help the younger generation?

The amount of crack cocaine found in the jacket, which belonged to the then 16-year-old, was enough to be split into 104 separate drug deals.

When interviewed by police, he told officers that he was driven to the address forced to weigh and bag the illicit substances in order to work off his own drug debts having not paid a dealer for around £500 worth of cannabis.

At the time of his arrest, he had been doing so for around two weeks and ‘felt intimidated’.

Five months later, on Wednesday, September 13, police similarly executed a warrant at a Golden Gates Housing Trust-owned property on Boydell Avenue at around 10am.

The boy, who was under investigation by police at the time following the Pyramid Court raid, was found upstairs trying to escape from a bedroom window.

He was found to have £293 in cash in his coat pocket, as well as six wraps of heroin and one wrap of cocaine in his trouser pocket.

Further searches in custody found two plastic bags in his boxer shorts, which contained 90 wraps of heroin and 60 wraps of crack cocaine - each worth £10.

Additional drugs and paraphernalia was also found throughout the property.

The dead body of a man in his 20s was discovered at this flat on the morning of the court hearing, with its occupants 51-year-old Mark Johnson and 37-year-old Kelly Lynskey due to be sentenced for drug offences alongside the teen.

They will instead appear this Friday, May 11, after they were both convicted of possession of heroin and crack cocaine with intent to supply plus two counts of allowing a premises to be used for the supply of class A drugs.

Police are not treating the man’s death as suspicious.

The youth, from Liverpool, told probation officers that he had been forced to do further work packaging drugs for sale due to the loss of the heroin and crack cocaine during the Pyramid Court raid.

He claimed that he had been at the flat for five days at the time of his arrest, and that if police had visited the day before then they would have found as much as £9,000 in cash.

Prosecuting barrister Peter Hussey told the court: “The extent of the youth’s involvement is clear - his role is a significant one.

“This defendant was a key member of the operation.

“That said, he is a very young, impressionable and easily-led person.”

But the youth, who brought a packed suitcase with him to court and wore a black Nike tracksuit, was spared jail by his honour judge Roger Dutton.

He was instead given an ‘intensive’ two-year youth rehabilitation order and a six-month curfew of 6pm to 6am.

Sentencing, judge Dutton said: “On two occasions last year, you were caught playing a significant part in the distribution of class A drugs in Warrington.

“I’m prepared to accept that you get yourself involved with sophisticated criminals by accepting drugs for which you had no means of paying - this led to you being sucked into the drug distribution system.

“You played an important and significant role in what was taking place, and anyone who plays a part in the distribution of class A drugs must understand that it is a very serious offence.

“You are a young man in a rather feckless condition who has been guided down the wrong track but you have the option, as a young man, to put this down as a bad series of decisions which could have landed you in prison for a substantial period.

“I’ve just about come to the view, because your rehabilitation is a cardinal principle, of going down the route of making a community order in its most highly intensive form.

“If you don’t do what you are told to do then you will be in significant trouble, and if you go back to offending then there is no future for you.”

The youth told the court: “I will take this opportunity to change my life.”

He was also ordered to pay a statutory victim surcharge.